


Counterintuition

by idiotbrothers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Drunk Sam, Episode Tag, Fix-It, Gen, Light Angst, Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 13:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2549993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idiotbrothers/pseuds/idiotbrothers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A hopeful sort of conclusion to episode 10x03, wherein Sam is drunk and Dean is not, and talking happens. Touches on the demon!Dean situation as well as what happened to Sam in s9.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counterintuition

Sam nearly tripped as he weaved down the hall to his room, his good hand braced against the wall. His tongue was cotton in his mouth, heavy with the taste of liquor, his limbs too loose and weightless by comparison. He felt like if he fell, he’d sink through the floor and never be heard from again. 

Not a bad fate, he thought.

He’d been drinking in the battle room for hours,  _hours_ , and Dean hadn’t so much as poked his head in to say hello. Not that Sam had expected him to paste himself to Sam’s side once he came back, but it would’ve been nice to hear a thank-you of some sort. Or, you know, an apology. Not for Dean trying to kill him with a hammer, because yeah, that had been fucking terrifying, but it was kind of…par for the course.

And not even really for the shit Dean said while he was being cured, because Sam thought he could go his whole life without ever having to consider the implications of those words again.

No, what Sam kept thinking back to was the shit that led up to all this: last year’s goddamn possession fiasco. The awful memories had flared bright and harsh in his mind even as he drank and drank to suppress them, and now he was swimming in outdated regret and anger, focused on this one infuriating thing to prevent himself from going crazy with ruminating on the past several weeks and his formerly black-eyed brother.

_I’d do it again_  echoed through Sam’s mind over and over again like never-ending ripples in a pond, wearing away at Sam’s sore spots.  ”Like hell y’will,” Sam muttered under his breath, then laughed to himself because Dean fucking  _would_ , he didn’t give a  _shit_  what happened unless Sam was alive and operating on his terms. What a nightmare.

Something in Sam’s mind shifted and he found himself thinking back to how he’d dropped the blade, how Dean had whipped his arm out in one fluid motion and nearly gripped the hammer, nearly used it to crush Sam’s brains, before he was stopped. At the time, Sam had lamented the interruption so fiercely that he’d wanted to cry, because  _he’d actually do it this time, he’d kill me without remorse and he wouldn’t look back, I wouldn’t be yanked back to this shithole before I could blink_.

Thinking about it now, Sam felt the same pang of loss, knowing that he’d never get such an opportunity again—Dean had never been able to let him go, and he most likely never would be.  _Hell on Earth_ , Sam’s brain spelled out, but he could’ve admonished himself for that, because he knew Hell, and it wasn’t right to speak lightly of it. Even if his rate of resurrection did bear an unpleasant symbolic resemblance to the way Lucifer had remade him from scratch after every blood-soaked, bone-rattling death he or Michael had inflicted on him. 

_Pathetic piece of shit_ , Sam thought, and yeah, that was him. He’d gotten Dean back, but what for? 

_What do you care?_  

Sam remembered feeling a flash of rage at the jeering question, because this  _demon_  may have had all of Dean’s memories, but if it seriously couldn’t figure out the answer to that question, its perceptions were for shit.

But now…now he was reevaluating his own answer, because in the long run, what had he accomplished here? He’d saved Dean—“saved” being an operative term. What were the aftereffects of such an act? Dead-quiet bunker, miles of self-doubt, dangerously high expectations that would inevitably be crushed. Here was his old niche as it existed when he and Dean were together, and here he was, involuntarily sinking back into it. It fit around him like a hole-riddled, foul-smelling, itchy cloak.

“Fuckin’ Dean,” Sam slurred, slapping uselessly at the wall and stumbling as a result. Urged on by his gut, he ignored the door to his own room and found himself in front of Dean’s, sweaty hand clasping the doorknob as he knocked clumsily. “Dean? Hello?” The words came out more garbled than he would like. “I’m comin’ in, ‘kay?”

Pushing the door open and stepping unsteadily over the threshold, Sam saw that Dean was very much awake, sitting up in bed with his eyes locked on Sam.

"Hi, Sammy," Dean said hesitantly, and Sam winced, wanted to say  _It’s **Sam**_ , but couldn’t muster the indignation for it. ”Hey. Hi, Dean.” He wanted to sit down, slump to the floor for lack of a better idea, but that might be alarming. “You eat?” He asked, squinting as Dean’s figure split into two, wavering around the edges. Dean nodded, brushed his fingers through his hair.

“Yeah, um. Thanks. Y’know, for the food, and everything.”

Sam had to suppress a mirthful snort, clapping his hand over his mouth.  _Thanks for the food, and everything_. That was just like Dean, rendering the significant a mere footnote to the insignificant. It maybe should have made Sam mad, but he felt delighted instead, like he wanted to  _giggle_. Dean was giving him a weird look. “You okay, Sam?” That goddamn fucking question. ”Nah, m’ wasted, Dean. Waaasted. I drank, like, all your good shit.” The corner of Dean’s mouth turned up. “All of it?”

"So much. Like, two whole bottles, or somethin’. Maybe four. I dunno." Sam wobbled on his heels, leaned his good arm against the doorjamb. "Can I come in, or…?" Dean blinked. "Oh, uh. Of course you can. What are you, a rakshasa?" Sam frowned uncomprehendingly, but stepped into the room anyway, shutting the door behind him a tad too loudly.

Carefully putting one foot in front of the other, he lowered himself to Dean’s bed, taking a seat at the end of it. Dean cleared his throat, eyeing the closed door. "Didn’t know you were planning on spending the night," he said. It was probably supposed to be a joke, but Sam felt a twinge of frustration anyway. "I’ll sleep here if I want to," Sam insisted, tongue tripping him up as he spoke and detracting from his confident tone of voice.

Dean’s eyebrows flew up. "Uh. Alright. Don’t let me kill your buzz." Satisfied, Sam swung his legs up onto the mattress and scooted up the length of the bed until he was sitting side by side with Dean, their shoulders touching.

When Sam peeked at Dean’s face, he looked uncomfortable. “Sam…you should, ah. You should really get to bed. Your  _own_  bed.” Sam twisted his lips, leaned his weight against Dean and ignored the way he almost jumped at the contact. “Fuck that. I didn’t bring you back so you could sit here by y’rself like a sad…clod.” 

Funny, that was exactly what Sam himself had been doing several minutes ago. Sam Winchester: sad clod.

“Why  _did_  you bring me back?” The question was equal parts sardonic and genuinely curious. Sam groaned. “Do we gotta fuckin’ do this song n’ dance all the time?”

"No, I’m serious," Dean said, voice hard. "Normally, you don’t give a fuck whether you live or die, so why didn’t you just…take the hit, first chance you got? Cas wouldn’t have been around to stop you, earlier." 

_There’s the brother I know and love_.

Sam blew out a breath, tilted his head so that it was resting against Dean’s shoulder. “Missed you, y’ bastard.” Dean stiffened. “Shit, Sammy, I’m—I shouldn’t have talked to you that way.” 

"Don’t call me that."

"Huh?" 

"Hate that stupid nickname."

Dean stayed silent at that, and Sam suddenly couldn’t ignore the way his eyes were stinging. "What’re we gonna do, Dean?" He choked out, pressing one hand to his mouth as if he could hold himself together that way. "I don’t think—I’m not sure if I can move past this." A sob escaped along with the end of his sentence, and he crumpled in on himself, tangling his fingers in his hair.

Distantly he felt Dean’s hands land on his shuddering shoulders, light enough that the touch could’ve been a figment of his imagination. Dean cleared his throat. "You, uh. You shouldn’t have to."

Sam raised his head, swiping at his watery eyes. "D’you mean that?" Dean swallowed, glancing at the ceiling. "Yeah. I know there’s a lot I don’t get right, but. I’ll understand if—if you need space to, like, deal. And if you feel up to talking about it sometime, I’ll do my best not to interrupt." Sam eyeballed him incredulously at that, and Dean gave a bitter little laugh.

"Okay, well. That sounds like an empty promise, considering my track record, but I wanna  _try_. We’re fucked up, Sam. There’s so much shit I gotta apologize to you for at this point that when I start thinking about where to begin, I actually give myself a headache.”

_You could start with, ‘I’m sorry I let an angel possess you without your knowledge’_ , Sam thought, but he just wrapped his arms around Dean and held him tight, squeezing his eyes shut and crying quietly into the curve of his neck. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry, Dean,” Sam whispered wetly, and he didn’t have the slightest clue what he was apologizing for.

"Don’t be," Dean said in return, his voice steady and sure and inexplicably beginning to thaw out that cold place deep inside Sam. 


End file.
